Merge / NonMerge

[Lance Rasmussen]

Out of curiousity... what is your association / state situation. Are the boys and girls "playing well" with eachother or has your local/state stayed split?

What is your take so far... with merging and not?

To maybee take this to a unique twist... who still believes their local association has a right not to join USBC and still remain an ABC or WIBC association?

[Angel Zobel-Rodriguez]

Here in the Northern Los Angeles County, several organizations merged in May. The president, who was head of the transition committee, was the former president of the local YBA. He beat out the local BA president, and a former WBA president (who was, until the merger serving as a director with the BA).

As far as I can see, everyone's playing nicely, and the offices have merged. It does seem that USBC spent more time encouraging groups to merge than on how to handle what came next (offices, databases, etc).

Honestly, I am looking forward to one office, one set of paperwork (instead of 3 for my A/Js), and one organization to pay my dues to. I'm lucky, in that the president will be hand delivering my supplies and taking in my award stuff, since he's my husband. I guess that makes me first lady

[Frank Goebel]

I am in a unique situation in that my center's ABC changed associations a few years back, immediately prior to my assuming the secretary's post of a league that was moving into the center that would merge with the one I was already in. I will say the associations' names: My center's ABC changed from Troy to Albany, and the moving-in league was already with Albany. My youth league (which I was in charge of) and the WIBC stayed with Troy. I voted against the move to Albany; there was a meeting in which only 12 bowlers appeared. ABC ratified the 7-5 vote. I would purchase BLS-2003 a few months later.

Enter USBC. Albany decided to merge, and that forced my center to have all bowlers go to Albany, effective August 1, 2006.

I applied for a board position on Albany, and since I was a youth director, they decided to make me a Youth Commitee (former Albany YABA) appointee to the board. I would rather have been an elected board member, but that's okay.

Back in Troy, I attended every board meeting of their YABA. They, and the women, both voted to be open to a merger. The Troy men, however, have not been playing nice. They wouldn't produce a combined yearbook for the association, so there were instead three. They mentioned they might be open to a merger, but they have changed their minds so the three integers will remain un-merged.

I've given up my youth director position for personal reasons (not because of being forced into Albany). My seat on their board means I'll be able to put in some input on not only youth tournaments, but also the adult ones. Albany does seem to be cooperating fairly well.

[Tom Kelly]

We just recently MERGED prior to the start of the new season. From what I see the men's organization was the surviver and the womens division went bye-bye. The women division was suppose to join/move into the office that presently has men division, this never happened and I was told will not come about.

[Keith Chambers]

In San DIego it was the opposite of Tom's situation. We merged and the "men" went away and the women are the queens of the sandbox.
I whole heartily agree with Angel on the USBC's shortsightness on what comes after the merge. Our data bases are still not consolidated, the former BA data base is corrupted and former BA members new memberships and awards can not be processed until Greendale figures out the problem. The Youth were given permission to "finish out the summer leagues" before consolidating their data with the adults. Why are they still using three data bases and three computers to process data in September???
Both adult associations have been working out of one office for more than 12 years, not always on the same page, sometimes not even in the same playbook; but at least now it is only one voice!
The merger was approved by a nearly 3 to 1 vote at the open membership meeting and I keep hoping against hope that the leaders will start acting like adults and move forward.

[Angel Zobel-Rodriguez]

Keith,

We merged in May, and we were told that the merged databases had to come at the end of a season. Now they're saying it's ok after all the averages have been entered, but at the time...

The offices merged August 1, and the new association folks are working on the way to break down the office help and the databases. But the people in the office volunteering are entering the awards on a much quicker basis.

As the later organizations find the courage to merge, I hope USBC puts the efforts of the early birds together--and gives the later merging groups a better understanding of what's going on.

[Douglas Moye]

Here in Detroit we had/have it easier than most. the BA and WBA for years had shared the same office building (with a wall separating the 2) and the expenses.

Not too long ago the WBA secretary retired and our Exec Dir was hired as their secretary, and the office staffs were combined and the wall removed.

We (BA/WBA) approved the sale of our building and the proceeds went into the merged Association. (the merger was the GDBA/Det Women/Pontiac Women?Detroit YABA). the merged Assoc moved into office space in the building that houses (and is owned by) the proprietors Assoc.

The big glitch to start with was the YABA. They were totally against the merger for 2 main reasons.
1. their fear that the youth wouldn't get true representation (they hadn't keep up on the info explaining how things were going to work)
2. big drop in membership (the covered an area much larger the the merging organizations)

Eventhough they had voted not to merge, we invited them to send representatives to the transition board meeting and to participate. They and a few others got enlightened to the process and what the final result would be and they discovered that everyone's input counted.

Our merge has gone well so far and there doesn't seem to be a division based on the different "groups". Everything so far has been what has been need period for bowling and the membership. Support between the "groups" has been excellent and we seeem (so far) to be acting as one body.